The conference was an historic event. The Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) met for the 11th time, while marking the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. At Montreal,
the first ever Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol (CMP) ran
parallel to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP). The United Nations Climate Change
Conference was the largest intergovernmental climate conference since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997.
Some 10,000 participants attended.

The conference attracted unprecedented business interest as a result of two operation trading systems: the
pan-European emissions trading scheme and the Clean Development Mechanism, a tool to promote sustainable
development and combat climate change.